


Sheer Luck

by hiddlestonsitslikeahohoho



Series: Awakening [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Amnesia!John, Gen, M/M, slightly AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-01-23
Updated: 2013-01-24
Packaged: 2017-11-26 16:13:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/652107
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiddlestonsitslikeahohoho/pseuds/hiddlestonsitslikeahohoho
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John Watson wakes up in a hospital, learning he has been in a coma for over 2 years, a coma which began on the exact day in which he first met Sherlock Holmes. He is told that the adventures he had with the genius were nothing more than just a figment of his imagination. Or at least, he is made to believe in this idea, as a high position in the government has instructed.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The first thing he noticed was light. Lots of light.

Strange, really, given that there was never much of that in the flat. With or without Holmes.

The second thing was the incessant beeping of something. His mind was muddled, and it took him several minutes to realize that the sound was all too familiar. The beeping of a cardio machine, the drip drip drip of an IV. He wondered who’s pulse it was to be so low.

Of course, he eventually realized it was his.

He was confused, to say the least, the fact that he didn’t remember anything about his past months except for a couple of flickers, and the fact that he had no recollection at all about an accident which could have lead him to be in this hospital.

He followed his first instinct, and began to push himself off the bed. The several IV drips attached to his skin tugged him back down. He kept going, making a too abrupt move which made his head spin, falling back to his pillow with a grunt.

A nurse came in to the room as she heard this; meanwhile John was trying desperately to tear the IV’s from his arms.

“I don’t think you’ll want to do that” she said, her voice soft and reassuring, a voice all nurses were trained to use when dealing with patients.

“What happened? Why am I here?...Where’s Sherlock?” the questions flowed freely out of his mouth, reaching a slightly taken back nurse. She was obviously not prepared for him to be so eager after waking up.

“It is not my place to tell you what happened, but the doctor will come in briefly to tell you everything you need to know” she smiled politely, and John just looked at her with a confused look. So he couldn’t be told what happened to him? That was definitely something that doesn’t happen in hospitals.

 

He couldn’t argue, not in the condition he was in. Checking his own vitals, he realized he was not as stable as he’d like to be. It was after a long debate with himself that he decided to lay back down and let his pulse get back to normal.

* * *

He was woken from his catnap by a soft pair of footsteps, along with whispers just loud enough for him to hear. He kept his eyes closed, listening intently although his ears betrayed him. It was just vague words the ones that did manage to make it to his ears, just phrases which made no sense without the full context.

“Government…critical…amnesia” were the only words he heard before the people in charge of those footsteps approached his bed. He opened his eyes slowly, doing his best to look as if he just woke up.

“Hello, John. I’m Dr. Harrison and this is nurse Williams” he gestured to the small woman which had been in to see him earlier. He ignored the introduction, not really caring at all about what the doctor had to say. His mind jumped with questions, but only one reached his lips, one which his mind seemed to think was of high priority.

“Where’s Sherlock?” he asked simply, his mind racing to find memories of him. They were all blurry, strange, given that the man always seemed to have such a great impression on him.

He was disappointed at the fact that Sherlock wasn’t there with him after the accident which he’d seemed to have. But of course, such a busy man as Sherlock Holmes couldn’t always be there for his right hand man. He was probably out solving cases, saving the day like he always had.

But then the other possibilities deemed into his head, the fact that maybe if he was in the hospital it could mean that Sherlock was hurt too. He repeated the question, his undertone of urgency and preoccupation making its way through more prominently. He looked around, wondering if Sherlock had been put in the same wing as he did. All he saw were sleeping bodies, several of them on cots on either side of his own.

Then it hit him. They weren’t sleeping.

Their pulse was too low, their eyes barely moving whilst they were sleeping. His eyes flicked over to the glass door, a confirmation of his thoughts showing clearly on the door. White letters were painted on the foggy glass, three simple letters: CIU.

Coma Isolation Unit.

He’d been in a coma. How long? How? Why? And still, where was Sherlock?

He had nearly forgotten the presence of the doctor and the nurse until he felt the touch of a reassuring hand pushing him back down to the cot.

“Doctor Watson, who are you speaking about?” he said softly, his eyes focused on his to check for a reaction.

John just laughed, looking up at him with slightly troubled eyes.

“Right, I thought your job meant you had the obligation to be serious with patients” he saidsarcastically, still looking up at him.

There was no change in Dr. Harrison’s eyes, no words coming out of his mouth to clear up the sentence he’d just let out.

“Be serious with me, doctor. What happened? Why am I in the CIU?” he asked, worried this time.

“We supposed you wouldn’t remember, the impact did really give you a certain degree of amnesia—“ the doctor began, and John immediately sat bolt upright.

“What impact?” he asked firmly, the military coldness in his eyes.

“Doctor Watson, you’ve been in a coma. You got brought in from Afghanistan with a gunshot wound in your shoulder. You were deep in a coma” the doctor responded.

“How long?” John asked, his features curving into a worried expression.

“2 years. Since September 17th”

John closed his eyes, his mind racing with thoughts and words and memories. He knew he’d heard that date before, a date which once had seemed so important to him.

2 years, Afghanistan, amnesia, coma.

September 17th. The day he first met Sherlock Holmes, 2 years ago. He’d been in a coma that day.

He’d never met Sherlock Holmes, or moved in to a flat with him, or helped him solve crimes.

None of it ever happened.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit::  
> Thanks to fleetwood_mouse for pointing out my mistake in spelling 'coma', I believe all the mistakes have been fixed.  
> If you find more mistakes, please do tell, as I am currently still searching for a beta reader.


	2. Chapter 2

John did not have a single moment of silence since he woke up. There was always the constant sound of nurses rushing past his door, the beeping of the machines of other patients, the doctors coming in to check on him. 

It’d been a week since it’d been revealed that all of the adventures he’d had with the remarkable Sherlock Holmes had been nothing but figments of his imagination. A week since he’d been unable to believe anything that the doctors told him.

True, he did have a certain level of amnesia, given that he did not remember anything at all about Afghanistan, or the wound which landed him in the hospital in the first place. But the flickers of memories which did manage to make their way into his brain were clear, they seemed so realistic, and they were all of the man who had never existed other than in his imagination. It was like a small slideshow of video clips in his mind. Click running through the city with Sherlock click eating at a Chinese restaurant with Sherlock click standing in Scotland Yard with Sherlock. All the memories were of him with Sherlock, all the other faces were blurry to his mind as if it had decided that it was of importance to keep a clear image of the detective’s face. 

It made him mad, the fact that his brain had kept only images that were not even real, none of the time in which he had been fighting in the war of Afghanistan. His mind was like a house of cards, full of memories but all of them could simply fall apart so easily, as they did when the doctor first told him about the time he’d been in a coma.

Over the days he’d willed himself to keep faith in the fact that this was all a big mistake, that he was in a dream or that the doctors were simply lying to keep him from seeing Sherlock again. But instead, everyday his mind fell deeper and deeper into the thought that the doctors were right, that there was no reason for them to fake such a thing, and so after that week he’d been conscious in the hospital he’d learned to believe it. 

Of course, he didn’t know that there indeed was a reason for the doctors to fake such information. A reason for them to hide the truth about John’s past with Sherlock Holmes.

This reason stood under the name of Joseph Silver, a high rank in the British government. 

Truth be told, John Watson did indeed cause himself a wound which kept him in a deep coma for about a month. This wound was indeed a bullet wound, but not one which was made by a military man during the war, but one which Watson caused himself.

You see, after the supposed suicide of the fake genius which was Sherlock Holmes (memory of which John was no recollection of) John moved out of 221b, leaving Mrs. Hudson without anyone currently renting the flat. He moved in with Sara, with whom he had a relationship which couldn’t be described as romantic, just one of good friends which are there when the other needs them. He did go back to 221b to pick up his things, but the sight of all the things which were once his best friend’s, a genius who had saved several lives including his own several times, laying there, unused now that their owner was deceased, it was too much.

He fell into a deep state of depression, one which hit its peak when he attempted to commit suicide by shooting himself in the chest. Luckily for him, it was not enough to end his life. 

He was found by Sara, and after the high government learned about this suicide attempt (aka Mycroft Holmes) he ordered for no one connected with Sherlock Holmes to be allowed to visit him in the hospital, simply to prevent another suicide attempt from happening. 

Mycroft intended this condition to be temporary, only until John was fully recovered from his depression and finally managing to deal with the grief in a healthy way. But once the order was heard by his superiors, it was taken too far, as to erase Sherlock Holmes from Watson’s mind forever. 

This superior was no one other than Joseph Silver, a man who slipped seamlessly into the British government only 3 months before. Nobody had ever heard of him before, but he showed to have perfect qualifications and documentation proving that he was indeed qualified to be part of the high government, and so nobody questioned him further. 

Mycroft was outraged by this decision, but compared to Silver he was nothing more than effectively a minor position in the British government. Joseph had taken over all control he had on the subject, and he was forced to comply with the orders given by him to the hospital, Scotland Yard, and every single acquaintance ever made by Sherlock Holmes or John Watson that could be linked to a memory to trigger back John’s depression. 

But his agreement to obey with the orders didn’t mean Mycroft would go off without a fight. 

He believed John had the right to know about everything his brother did to guarantee the safety of several people, the capture and eventual death of London’s most dangerous man, the praise he had obtained for being such a remarkable man who was unfairly claimed as a fake by a man who was a fake himself. 

So Mycroft set up his own plan, his own network to ensure that John find out the truth about Sherlock and his adventures and accomplishments by any means necessary, even if that meant he would be putting himself on the front line of a possibly fatal danger by disobeying the orders of his superior. 

What Mycroft didn’t know, was that there was not one but two men prepared to go to the same lengths to prevent John from ever discovering the truth about his sudden appearance in the hospital. 

But of course, in the end it all comes down to a single man, who was currently inclining towards forgetting the whole Sherlock Holmes business.

And Mycroft had to do something about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hence, my attempt to make a cliffhanger.  
> Hope you liked the chapter!
> 
> PS: This fanfic is also being posted on fanfiction.net, be sure to follow it there too!  
> http://www.fanfiction.net/s/8938617/1/Sheer-Luck


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